Preparing Your Business for Christmas Trade in 2020

With Christmas now just around the corner, there are many thousands of small businesses across the US looking forward to a much-needed boost in sales from the festive spending rush. After a year of lower-than-usual consumer spending, and a huge amount of disruption experienced by all businesses across the world, Christmas provides a welcome light at the end of the tunnel after months of anguish for businesses. Here’s how you can best capture more trade, and please more consumers and customers, in the weeks of trade that lie ahead. 

Website

You need your digital assets to be working well this winter if you’re to secure the online trade that’ll give your business a welcome shot in the arm this Christmas. That means presenting a professional and trustworthy website to potential customers, making your website SEO-friendly to increase traffic, and using all the marketing tools you have in your arsenal to boost your visibility in the online space. Furthermore, it means making your back-end smooth. When a customer heads to the checkout, for instance, you want the front-end to be as friction-free as possible, and the back-end to communicate an order right through to your staff as soon as the cash is paid and delivery times are set. 

Order Fulfillment 

Once orders have been placed on your website, you’re looking to get packages to customers as soon as possible. This is one of the main areas of competition for smaller retailers that are looking to compete with the giants on Amazon – and larger stores like Walmart. Partnering with a smart, professional order fulfilment company will help your firm get packages to its recipients as soon as possible.  To really make this part of your delivery process smooth, these companies will give you a guarantee of the kind of services that they can offer – including delivery slots they’re able to meet, and returns policies that they’re able to help you to offer. Outsourcing this fulfilment process will allow you to spend more time on the important parts of your business – like marketing, sales, and customer service. 

E-Commerce Giants

This Christmas is likely to break records with regards to the volume of shopping that’s conducted online. While this figure has been rising steadily over the years, the impact of the pandemic will mean that hundreds of thousands of consumers head online for their shopping each day. Competing in this crowded marketplace will be a key differentiator between the winners and losers this winter. As such, you should spread your products onto more websites this winter – including all of the e-commerce giants. By placing your products on Google and Facebook’s marketplace, as well as upon Amazon, eBay, and other major e-commerce providers – will simply get your products seen by more individuals online. The more you’re seen, the more likely you are to drum up trade in the future – making for a bumper Christmas of sales for your brand.  There you have it: three essential tips to boost your Christmas sales output this year – marking a happy end to a difficult 2020.